Second (string) instrument for a flute player?

Trad Strings
1

my first love is flute, with whistle being a second.

Flute, for me, is very demanding. I’ve been playing
for four 1/2 years, about as devoted as I could be.
I’ve played, usually, two hours a day. A fair amount
of methodical practice. Loren said once
that learning flute is as hard as fighting Mothra.
I second. But there is, you know, steady, gradual
improvement. Edging closer to some approximation
of mastery. I hope to be up to speed within
the next year or two.

I played guitar for 30 years, stopping about ten years
ago, mostly finger picking folk stuff; some classical
technique. Running into
physical problems, mostly rt hand/wrist, from
finger-picking. AT some point will shift guitar to
an accompaniment instrument. Been fooling around
with a mandolin lately, which seems to play itself.
Also it has greatly facilitated my dexterity with a pick.
Playing with a pick was always a mystery to me.
The mandolin has helped fix that. I’m going to now
play guitar with a pick.

In looking for a second instrument. I’ve been guided
by the principle that the second instrument should not
be terribly demanding if the first instrument is terribly
demanding. I figure I don’t need another instrument
as hard as flute is for me, anyhow.

So I’ve set aside fiddle, because I figured it’s terribly
demanding. No frets, bowing–although the fingering
is like that of the mandolin, super-rational and easy.

On the other side, fiddle has advantages.
It’s got good volume, it’s (to my mind) the greatest
instrument there is, it plays all sorts of music, it’s
wonderfully expressive, and so on.

Also fiddle in inexpensive. My info is that I could get
a used fiddle for maybe 350, that would suit my
purposes fine. Consider that, in another thread here,
I’m talking about spending 3150 for a (very good)
mandolin, though there is some question whether
it will be loud enough for sessions.

I notice that some of you play both flute and fiddle.
So I wonder about this principle–the second instrument
shouldn’t be terribly demanding if the first is.
Maybe I’m over-estimating the difficulty of fiddle?
Maybe it’s alright to do two demanding instruments?
How long does it take to get up to speed on fiddle?
And so on…

Advice/comments welcome. Considering options.

2

Hello Jim,

I’m looking for the same, as I also play the flute, whistle (and pipes), so an instrument that is not so demanding would be great to accompany myself (sort of), I excluded fiddle after I tried fiddlin’ around on one, I guess that I could make it, but it’s too demanding and I have way enough to learn on the flute. I also tried guitar (dadgad) but found it also quite hard to play, especially regarding stretch (and it has too many strings…). I tried mandolin at a friend’s recently and found it very comfortable to play. Not too difficult to work out chords by ear, melody playing is also not that hard, but it’s too high-tuned to my ears. So I settled on octave mandolin which is the instrument I’m going to get as soon as I sorted some money out. Fine for accompaniment, fine for melody playing (if desired), not too hard a stretch compared to a bouzouki.

Hope that helps somehow.

Best,
Gabriel

3

4

Interesting, yes, octave mando is lovely.

My wife has just informed me that she
will leave me if I take up with the fiddle.
Or at least that she will go mad.

Is there a fiddle mute?

5

Yes, all kinds – some are quite effective at deadening the sound to a whisper.

Fiddle was my first instrument but i rarely pick it up – maybe it’s because i had four years of music college, but i think of it as being a very demanding instrument. If you’re really picky about intonation, you can spend the rest of your life with it and never be fully satisfied. I think of it as an instrument that is really easy to play badly.

Again, YMMV.

Mandolin is a great instrument that has allowed me to keep up my fiddle fingerings and add chords as well. The tuning in fifths is very logical and moveable chord shapes are easily learned and can be applied all over the instrument. The biggest problem IMHO with mandolin is volume. You also want to play it enough to keep your calluses, it’s a pain to lose them and get them back again.

Tenor banjo can be fun, also in fifths and definitely not lacking in volume. Not real versatile in terms of genre, and you really need to like how it sounds or you’ll get tired of it quickly. Not too expensive to start with, either.

Five-strings are popular with ballad singers, doesn’t look too complicated if you stay away from scruggs style.

There’s zouk, easy to do accompaniment (especially droney stuff) but hard to get around for melody.

If you want something easy and just want to make chords, there’s the autoharp. Not too traddy though. Looks like a PITA to tune, also.

I was considering hammered dulcimer for a while but after some investigation i decided that the combination of complicated tuning plus lack of portability was too big a downside. Plus i’m not that crazy about the sound.

Ukes are fun, but you might get funny looks at a session.

Am i forgetting anything?

edit:
Dobro – prolly not going over well in an Irish session. Lot of fun to play, but easy to play badly.

Harp – don’t know enough to comment. Lovely instrument though.

6

If it’s volume you want, you might also want to try a resonator mandolin – i’ve heard that the Nationals are super-loud but still sound nice, not tinny or like a banjo-mandolin.

7

Hi Jim,

For me, the thing that makes a new instrument easy is how much it has in common with something I already do.

I’ve played mando for years, so baz and tenor banjo were like falling off a log for me. They’re bigger, but they use the same basic skills and logic.

Then last Christmass I bought myself a fiddle. I figured it was just a fretless mandolin that you bow instead of pick. I thought I’d have a lot of skills that would translate to the fiddle and that it would be easy. Heck, I even bought one with a pickup in it, because I was going to learn so fast I’d be playing it on stage in a month or two.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I had a rude awakening. Other than the notes of the four strings, the fiddle has nothing in common with anything I’d ever done. It’s been nine months and I’m literally at the Mary Had a Little Lamb stage. I know it’s not the instrument’s fault, I have no one to blame but myself. I guess maybe some folks have a natural aptitude for the fiddle that makes it easy for them, but I sure don’t! But maybe you are one of those guys, Jim. I hope you are.
I think someone who has played the fiddle for years could pick up the mando in a snap, but I don’t think it works the other way around.

I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but it sounds like you’re looking for something that will be loud in a session and are willing to learn something new if it’s not too hard.

You might want to talk to Doc about that concertina that’s so easy to play. He mentioned it in that thread about what instruments we play. That one sounds really interesting to me.

8

R.H. mentioned the harp. I have one and tinker with it. It is a beautiful sound and the heart of Irish music. But I’ve messed around with about 50 instruments in my life, and I can tell you that the harp has nothing in common with anything. It’s an alien instrument from a different planet. Nothing I had learned in a lifetime’s experience prepared me for the harp. I had no skills that could translate to it. I have the greatest respect for harpists. I read that the American Association of Music Teachers (I think that’s their name) consistently rates the harp as the hardest instrument. I think they’re right.

9

Yes, there are fiddle mutes. You can get a light mute that gives the instrument a silvery sound- they are used in performance “con sordino”. Or you can get a heavy practice mute that will make a fiddle quieter than a flute.

The high tension cheese-cutter strings on a mandolin won’t be kind to your fingers, and mandolin chords can be hard on the hands as well. If I was starting out on one I’d get as cheap a mandolin as I could that had the frets in the right place, and wouldn’t get an expensive one until later. It is kind of unusual that you’d go for a cheap fiddle but an expensive mandolin. As someone who plays fiddle, flute, and mandolin, I’d probably go with fiddle if I could, and get an OK inexpensive fiddle but I wouldn’t skimp on the bow. It’s very hard to sound good on a fiddle with a crappy bow!

10

I wonder if that’s my problem? I have the crappy $30 fiberglass bow that came with the kit.

11

this might add an exotic touch to yer sesh:

12

Umm. . .yeah!

I started harp this past June. It is a weird, challenging instrument.

About the only instrument that helped me start off was actually the electric bass - the plucking technique on the strings has some similarities. That’s about it.

The first hurdle is getting the fingering technique down. Harpists plant their fingers in sequences, putting all three or four fingers on the strings in anticipation of the next series of notes to play. This is weird. On a flute, you can think of a note and more or less instantaneously play it. . . . not much foresight required. To an extent, the same thing is true on a guitar or a mando. On a harp, you are constantly thinking ahead, trying to get the fingers down in a pattern that will, in the future, give you the sound you want. It IS possible to improvise on a harp, and with a talented player, it’s amazing, but very much a challnge.

The second hurdle is getting both hands coordinated seamlessly, much like a piano. I have never had piano lessons, and this is very counterintuitive. It’s a lot more difficult to use the hands more or less independently, unlike a guitar, where both hands coordinate to play the same notes.

On the plus side, playing bass lines and chords for accompaniment is fairly easy. And harps have an unequaled “wow” factor. What you get for all the weirdness is a gorgeous sound that can’t really be imitated by anything else, and that can do a lot to fill in a session. I am very glad I got mine, but it will be many moons before I have it up to session or (eventually) gigging standards.

As well, tuning 36 strings every day is great for one’s sense of relative pitch. And maneuvering a 4’6" fragile instrument around so it fits in my compact car is great both for my sense of spatial relations and my back :slight_smile:

13

Thanks.

In bloomington this summer I talked at some length with
a fiddle maker (has a shop there and I just walked in)
who assured me a 350–400 used Chinese fiddle,
or possibly (east) European one, would do fine.
There’s a fiddler at the market where I busk
playing a 350 dollar fiddle, and he sounds fine.
So that’s why I figured that’s good enough for folk music.
Maybe I’m wrong. I forgot how much he said
reasonalbe bows cost.

The problem with very demanding instruments, for me,
is that I fall into them forever and devote myself
to them body and soul. I’m 65 and, while I’m
doing OK soul-wise, there is the clear danger
of running out of body.

The mandolin player in our acoustic jam, who has
been playing forever, it seems, and is pretty good,
has started fiddle and, yes, it’s Mary-had-a-little-lamb
time. I’ve seen other musicians start fiddle and make
very slow progress. I, of course, thought I would
be an exception to all that! Hah, hah!

Thanks for the info about the fiddle mute,
but I won’t tell my wife.

This thread, which I’ve told her about, has reconciled
her to the idea of my spending lots of money
on a mandolin! I said: ‘It’s a choice between
a 350 fiddle and a 3,000 dollar mandolin. I’d get
the hang of that fiddle. It would only take a year
or so…’ She said: ‘You know, I think we actually
can afford that mandolin.’

Also I mentioned the
option of playing pipes.

14

The great thing about a mando as a second instrument. . .

Even if you screw up and it sounds bad, it doesn’t sound that bad. Meaning not loud or screechy. It’s the ultimate noodling instrument.

15

i’ve been mostly playing flute of late, and some whistle. i’d laid down the mandolin a while for various reasons.

the other day, i picked up the Joe Foley mandolin and started to tune it up. my wife (who NEVER comments on my playing, good bad or indifferent), said, “oh, how nice! i haven’t heard you play that for a while!”

so i take it the mandolin is a pretty spouse-friendly instrument, at least more than the flute (and certainly more than beginning fiddle).

16

OK, mandolin. Thanks, everybody.

By the way I tried concertina and, maybe I could have
done it sooner or later, but had the devil of a time
playing tunes. For me entirely unintuitive.
Even took a lesson with Grey Larsen,
who is very good on concertina. Luckily
the fellow who sold it to me wanted to buy
it back. But a great instrument, no question,
for those who can play it.

Harp seems to me to lack the edge that jigs
and reels require. Not to mention a lot of
other music I wish to play. I expect played very well
harp might defeat that estimate, but
I’m not sure I’ve heard much of that.

Hammered dulcimers’ sound gets old quickly,
I agree.

17

Knew you’d come around Jim. Holiday weekends are a tough time to think about new instruments. The store opens tomorrow though! :smiley:

18

This is a very interesting topic for me. I played a bit of guitar many years ago, then nothing for a long time. For quite a few years I’ve played english concertina (some Irish trad, but other stuff the majority of the time), some duet concertina (crane, hayden and chidley maccann) and flute. The english was my main instrument and that’s where most of my efforts went. Flute has always been somewhat of a struggle for me, but is probably the instrument I most enjoy soundwise.

For the past year or two ukulele has become the instrument I’ve concentrated on. While I personally feel it sounds great as an Itrad backup instrument, it would probably draw stares at a session. I’m also not sure about volume at a big session. Uke cuts through pretty well because of it’s reentrant tuning and pitch. Some ukes can be quite loud and heard just fine when playing with other acoustic instruments. I think it sounds great with flute.

Uke is very forgiving to play. Four nylon strings and a very short reach make it seem almost effortless compared to guitar. You don’t need to use a lot of pressure to press the strings when playing chords, in fact some guitarists report they have to unlearn pressing so hard. My guess is that it’s the easiest string instrument to play in terms of stress on the body. Where it really shines is strumming chords and vocal backup.

Ukes are also small, portable and very lightweight. I play soprano and concert uke, and my soprano isn’t much harder to travel with than a flute. Mine weighs less than a pound and is 21 inches long. They are very inexpensive. A good solid playing uke can be under 200 dollars. My custom, top of the line uke ran about 800 USD.

I mostly play chords and strum (some of the uke strum patterns can be quite complex and sound very cool, patterns that would sound like aural mud on a guitar) to accompany my voice. I also fingerpick, which sounds fine, but I think a guitar is better for fingerpicking. I play a few chord melodies, which sound excellent.

It’s also very easy to learn the basics of uke. Like any instrument it’s much harder to move past that and become a skilled player. Some people play very complex, difficult music on it. Expect to hear Tiny Tim remarks a lot if you bring it out in public.

I’ve been playing my flute a lot more lately and it’s going great. I don’t know why but my tone is fine every day (this has been a problem in the past) and the tunes have been flowing nicely. I couldn’t be more pleased with my recent progress. Maybe it’s just practice?

bruce boysen

19

This is a very interesting topic for me. I played a bit of guitar many years ago, then nothing for a long time. For quite a few years I’ve played english concertina (some Irish trad, but other stuff the majority of the time), some duet concertina (crane, hayden and chidley maccann) and flute. The english was my main instrument and that’s where most of my efforts went. Flute has always been somewhat of a struggle for me, but is probably the instrument I most enjoy soundwise.

For the past year or two ukulele has become the instrument I’ve concentrated on. While I personally feel it sounds great as an Itrad backup instrument, it would probably draw stares at a session. I’m also not sure about volume at a big session. Uke cuts through pretty well because of it’s reentrant tuning and pitch. Some ukes can be quite loud and heard just fine when playing with other acoustic instruments. I think it sounds great with flute.

Uke is very forgiving to play. Four nylon strings and a very short reach make it seem almost effortless compared to guitar. You don’t need to use a lot of pressure to press the strings when playing chords, in fact some guitarists report they have to unlearn pressing so hard. My guess is that it’s the easiest string instrument to play in terms of stress on the body. Where it really shines is strumming chords and vocal backup.

Ukes are also small, portable and very lightweight. I play soprano and concert uke, and my soprano isn’t much harder to travel with than a flute. Mine weighs less than a pound and is 21 inches long. They are very inexpensive. A good solid playing uke can be under 200 dollars. My custom, top of the line uke ran about 800 USD.

I mostly play chords and strum (some of the uke strum patterns can be quite complex and sound very cool, patterns that would sound like aural mud on a guitar) to accompany my voice. I also fingerpick, which sounds fine, but I think a guitar is better for fingerpicking. I play a few chord melodies, which sound excellent.

It’s also very easy to learn the basics of uke. Like any instrument it’s much harder to move past that and become a skilled player. Some people play very complex, difficult music on it. Expect to hear Tiny Tim remarks a lot if you bring it out in public.

I’ve been playing my flute a lot more lately and it’s going great. I don’t know why but my tone is fine every day (this has been a problem in the past) and the tunes have been flowing nicely. I couldn’t be more pleased with my recent progress. Maybe it’s just practice?

bruce boysen

20

Excellent. I’m coming late to this thread, but that’s what I was going to recommend. The mando’s a tremendously satisfying instrument to play, and while it’s not quite the thing for big fast loud cutthroat sessions, it makes a beautiful sound, and you can fall into playing it for hours on end without realizing it.